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Living Without Water

We had something kind of funny happen to us. We were remolding our kitchen and it was time for the hole for the sink in the counter top to happen. All was going well until the guys realized the hole was too big. We tried to fix it with just buying a bigger sink, but the hole was too big in a way we couldn’t find one. So we had to buy another counter. No big deal. It was just a trip to Lowe’s. The part that was interesting was the fact the guy helping us was not able to stay and try to cut the hole again and he wasn’t sure when he could come back. Guess what that meant. Yup, no sink in my kitchen.

It was interesting, but it helped me grasp a new appreciation for the running water in my house. All the time we heard about these countries who don’t have clean drinking water. The speakers will usually show a video of some poor kids with sad faces, we give money towards the cause and then go home and take a long hot shower or something with water. We have little idea just how important water is to people here in America because we have it literally on tap whenever we want it.

What if we didn’t? Now, I had water in other places in my house so I wasn’t completely without water, but I had lost for three days my main water source. I had to get really creative in order to do food and clean up without a kitchen sink. I bought two five gallon buckets to wash dishes in and was going to have to fill them up by the patio hose since it would be “too hard” to do it in the shower or another faucet. I was all prepared to do it Little House on the Prairie style, but there was something we have in America that those who don’t have water don’t have. My husband and I decided to just buy two Costco pizzas and a pack of paper plates. It got us through and we were tried of pizza by the done it was all done.

But what is my point? The point is that you can’t appreciate something really until you don’t have it anymore. I just got a taste of what it’s like… Okay more like a nibble of what’s like for people all over the world who don’t have running water in there house. Heck for those don’t have clean drinking water. At least all my water was drinkable and we had our fridge to get our filtered drinking water from. So many people don’t have anything, and it humbled my heart to actually put myself in their shoes.

Now I am not saying shut all your water off just because not everyone in the world has it, but I am saying to really be thankful you can turn a knob and clean drinkable water comes out. I know I do now and I wasn’t as grateful for it before. I expected it to be there, but, after this experience, I know now to always be thankful for it because in the blink of an eye it could be gone.